Checking out the latest films and giving you my uneducated opinion

Dead Silence

(This was originally published March 17, 2012 on the former WIMZ website)

“Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children, only dolls. And if you see her, do not scream. Or she’ll rip your tongue out at the seam.”

This is the poem used to sell the new horror film from the
writer and director of “Saw.” But it
should have gone more like this: Beware
the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no
children, only dolls. This movie is her
story told. But it’s not scary and
quickly grows old.

“Dead Silence” tells the story of Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten)
and his effort to find out who killed his wife Lisa (Laura Regan) by ripping
her tongue out. His search takes him
back to his home town of Ravens Fair
where entire families have been killed over several decades in the same
way. The main suspect is the ghost of a long-dead
ventriloquist, Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts) who had her tongue cut out and was
killed after she was suspected in the disappearance of a young boy. But police detective Jim Lipton (Donnie
Wahlberg) thinks Jamie killed his wife and follows him to Ravens Fair to prove
it.

Here’s how bad “Dead Silence” is. The best performance in the film is by Donnie
Wahlberg. Now, Wahlberg is a good actor
and has been in several TV shows and films (he was the crazy patient that
shoots Bruce Willis at the beginning of “The Sixth Sense”), but here, his
Detective Lipton is the most thought out, best written part in the movie and
he’s a secondary player. The rest of the
films’ protagonists are stock characters from any horror/suspense/thriller of
the last 10 years who make the same bad decisions made by every scary movie
victim. And the biggest sin of “Dead
Silence” is that it’s not scary. There
are two types of fear a movie can create.
First there’s the sustained tension of wondering if the bad guy is
around the next corner or will catch the character being chased. The second type is what I call the “BOO”
moment, when a sudden event causes you to jump in your chair. “Dead Silence” has only one “BOO” moment early
on and no sustained tension. Despite a
twist at the end that I should have seen coming, “Dead Silence” fails to live
up to its pedigree.

“Dead Silence” is rated R for horror violence and images. There isn’t that much blood, other than a
woman spitting up a large quantity of it.
We see Mary Shaw’s body after the mortician has fulfilled her wishes to
be turned into a life size doll and the effects of having ones tongue ripped
out of ones mouth. While somewhat
gruesome, there’s nothing too extreme in the film visually.

James Wan is the man behind the “Saw” movies. He directed the first one and produced the last two. Those films have so far have displayed a level of imagination and creativity that is obviously lacking in “Dead Silence.” Mr. Wan would be better served to apply the same effort to all of his projects in the future. And scary movie fans should save their money and rent “Psycho” or “The Exorcist” or “The Sixth Sense.”